Back to Maya: Negative Light

Having already played with lighting earlier on. I already had a vision in mind for how I would create my negative lighting variant. By saying negative it isn't meaning 'scary' or fearful, but just less welcoming than the positive light. From my tests in the previous post, I really liked the effect singular lights can have on the surrounding environment, especially using a blinn or phong material as it's so reflective. 

To do this I looked at the way in which my positive lights were created and then decided to break them down gradually. To achieve this I wanted to make the environment appear 'broken' and with that theme in mind, made me visually what could change in the scene. For example lights not working or dimmed, but in doing so will just touch the edges of surrounding objects. Given that 'depth' of light, but making it so the viewer has to make up the rest through imagination. From my research report, it is in darkness we have the 'unknown' and our imaginations mock up what could be. Keeping that in mind I should be able to portray the same effect.

I decided to keep the largest decorative wall panel 'on'. However, this time with a very small 'glow' affect on the material and also lowering the intensity of the area light.

 I also removed some of the floor lamp spot lights and adjusted their intensities too.

For my ticket terminals I wanted to do something different yet effective. I wanted to try again at making objects emit light, this time I want the 'beacon' features of my terminal to shine. I consulted with a friend of mine who is familiar with lighting methods and he taught me a new way to get objects to emit light. How I went about it was to reopen my UV snapshot and colour my terminal entirely in black APART from the areas I want to illuminate. Those areas were kept white. To add this to my terminal model, I went into the Attribute editor and under 'additional colour' I chose the targa file. I then selected the relevant colour for the areas I wanted to illuminate, but using the ink dropper tool on existing models. This setting adds an additional layer to the colour maps, but pushes through the 'selected' areas (in this case my beacons) to generate an illumination.

To further accentuate this effect, I decided to make one beacon appear to malfunction. I did this by removing some of the additional colour file and instead replace it with a low intensity glow. This would then make the light appear to be 'fizzing out'.

To finish off my scene, I added cameras to different areas of the room that captured all the features.

I set up a few cameras so I could find the best positions for when it comes to rendering my final scenes.

Here is a view through camera number 8. Perfect!


and the end result for my negative variant:

Overall I am incredibly pleased with this outcome. The light is subtle enough to just gentle touch the surfaces of surrounding objects. Therefore leaving the viewer to use their imagination and mock up the rest of the scene. The luminosity of the beacons on the terminals worked really well, especially the way in which the 'glow' effect on the second appears to be malfunctioning. The decorative panel lights had just the right amount of intensity, again just gentle touching small edges and surfaces. 

From my BA7 research up until now I can say how pleased I am with the end result and how much it reflects everything I have talked about. How light is a symbol of safety, warmth and good. How darkness is mystery and fear of the unknown etc. Both my lighting variants do just that. Although the entire lighting process took a very long time, it was most certainly worth it in the end